


Traveller

by race-jackson (Race_Jackson23)



Series: The Valkyrie [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: A Little Bit Purple Prose Not Gonna Lie, Alternate Universe - Alternate History, Asgardian Darcy Lewis, Asgardians - Freeform, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Based on a Tumblr Post, Bisexual Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Darcy Lewis-centric, Darcy is a Valkyrie, Gen, Loss of Identity, Loss of Trust, Mythology References, Pre-Thor (2011), Shieldmaidens, Sister-Sister Relationship, The Valkyrior, Warrior Darcy, Women Being Awesome, Women warriors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-03 03:57:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12740559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Race_Jackson23/pseuds/race-jackson
Summary: Millennia ago, when she was young and bright, when she believed in Asgard and the All-Father as one does a religion, when she was Sigrún the Victorious and before she was Darcy Lewis, she had sisters.A tale of sisterhood; of the Valkyrior and their fall, and of the rise of Darcy Lewis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Was kinda inspired by a prompt on Tumblr about a Valkyrie!Darcy, but when I looked for it to credit it, I couldn't find (if you find it pls link it to me!). This was also written after I saw Thor: Ragnarok (which I have seen three times now and will be seeing again tomorrow), so the background of the Valkyrior is borrowed from there and expanded upon. Expect Valkyrie the Fave. _Implied/mentioned_ Loki in this guys, soz, before you yell at me read the end notes. Also, fair warning, there is a _mildly graphic_ depiction of death in battle.

Millennia ago, when she was young and bright, when she believed in Asgard and the All-Father as one does a religion, when she was Sigrún the Victorious, she had sisters.

There was Geiravör, whose wit was as quick as her spear and twice as sharp, and Herja the Devastator, and Ölrún of aim so deadly none could survive her. Sweet-face Hrist of honeyed hair and silvered voice. Kára, whose skin was as stormy as her name and her temper just as, yet the most unwavering of them all. And Brynhildr, fiercest of the Valkyrior, the oldest and strongest and she who led them to victory against Asgard’s enemies.

There were other sisters, but they were sisters whose names and faces had been lost to time and Hela’s blade. Their names played on her tongue, dancing along the tip with those fleeting memories of their laughter, so close yet elusive. They are the sisters that she can no longer truly recall, despite her best efforts: the ones whose bodies she cannot remember seeing on the battlefield. Yet they must have been there, for no longer did they walk the Nine Realms alongside that which was left of the Valkyrior.

Of their order, only she and two others remained. Gone was sharp Geiravör and brutal Herja; gone was deadly Ölrún and merciful Hrist. All lost to blades the length of an arm that slashed and stabbed and flew through the air as arrows meeting their mark – thud, thud, _thud_ – turning her sisters to nothing more than glorified sacks of blood and bone. Their pegasi, too, fell to the blades, completely eradicated and thus unluckier – or luckier? – than their riders, though their deaths were just as gruesome and drawn out and at the end, it mattered not whether it was the blood of the pegasi or blood of the Valkyrior through which she and her sisters slipped and crawled.

Blood is seared into her brain and nose now. It haunts her in the twilight hours, sneaking into her dreams as a wraith and tormenting her with its coppery tang. Sometimes when awake, she blinks and she is there again, blinded, as Hela throws corpse after corpse – sister after _sister_ – onto her downed body, flinching as blood rains down upon her. The taste never goes away either, not through ale or toothpaste or even vomit, and while intellectually she knows it’s gone, she can’t help but feel it lingering on her tongue like it did the day her world ended.

The day her world went up in flames.

She remembers the All-Father, imposing and resplendent in his gold-studded leathers, striding amongst the dead towards the she-demon. His face was twisted at the mouth, his eyes as flinty as a whetstone, and as he walked, he appeared to be vibrating with anger. Beside him, his Vanir bride chanted the binding dark magics while Hela’s cackles turned to shrieks of rage. When it was over, and Hela was bound and banished, he walked back through the chaos of twisted limbs and mangled faces and frowned.

“What a waste,” he murmured, “a true waste.”

 _Waste?_ she had wanted to scream. _Waste? As if they’re thrown away food at a banquet table!_

But she bit her tongue and said nothing, and her remaining sisters did the same. Odin was their King, and it was not a Valkyrie’s place to question their King. Or so she thought. It was not until they all stood in the Great Hall of Asgard’s Palace long after the fight that someone spoke up, but that person was not she.

Instead, it was Kára, the most unwavering of them all, who railed at the All-Father, sobbed and ranted and accused, beset by a fury as wild as her name. Tears had run freely down her face as she damned and cursed the All-Father’s name in front of Asgard’s court, the sight reminding Sigrún of how tears had tracked through the blood staining Kára’s cheeks when they had faced Death itself. Sigrún could not pull her eyes away and neither, it seemed, could the court of Odin All-Father, who all watched with trepidation as the most loyal Valkyrie turned against him in her grief.

Impassive, however, the All-Father had been, not a hint of emotion playing at his face as he stared down his most loyal warrior in the throes of her treason. As Kára’s accusations melted into heart-wrenching sobs, he gestured to two guards that stood at attention by the foot of his throne and they quickly sprang into action, moving to restrain her arms and drag her from the hall. By his side, Odin’s bride gasped in outrage, milk-skin gone ashen, yet it was not her that blocked the guards’ path but a furious Brynhildr.

Crossing her arms over her armoured chest, Brynhildr levelled the All-Father with a stern scowl that would have struck a lesser man dumb but only served to narrow his eyes at the Captain of the Valkyrior. No doubt he hadn’t expected his most trusted warrior to oppose him, yet to Sigrún it was hardly a surprise. Of them all – and Sigrún had seen fit to remind herself that the rest of her sisters were dead and gone to Valhalla where she could not follow, and her grief threatened to drown her in response – Brynhildr was bravest and most strong-willed, far stronger than Sigrún, and had proved before that was not afraid to question the All-Father’s actions. She had done so when his plans had posed even the slightest threat to the Valkyrior and that moment, when they were all dead for the All-Father’s greed and short-sightedness, would prove to be no different.

Thousands of years later, when she was Darcy and face-to-face again with the All-Father, she could not completely remember what had been said, but clear in her mind was his impassivity, his guarded anger, as Brynhildr rescinded the Valkyrior’s vows in front of Asgard’s court. _It is the ultimate dishonour_ , she recalled him saying, but Brynhildr’s reply was as sharp as the swords that had destroyed their sisterhood: _Pledging ourselves to you was our ultimate dishonour_.

And so the Valkyrior fell.

At first, the last of the sisterhood remained together. Mourning the loss of their order, of their family, they’d banded together, brought closer than they’d ever been before in their grief. They lent on one another, supported one another and, while Sigrún felt hollowed out inside, for a time, she began to feel at peace. 

But it had been hardest for Kára, whose heart beat more for Hrist than it had for the rest of their sisterhood and whose life was only spared for her sacrifice. Kára, with a heart that warred also with the loss of Asgard, had turned to drink to numb her sorrows, pulling away from her remaining sisters despite their obvious anguish. It hadn’t been long before she was snapping at Brynhildr for imagined slights and Brynhildr was snapping back in turn, berating her for her drunkenness and accusing her of tarnishing the memory of their family. The arguing had lasted what seemed like a century, the months dragging into years in her memory, but eventually, Kára had left them. And then it was only two.

With only Brynhildr, life quickly descended into a monotony that neither of them seemed unwilling to disrupt. For all that they traversed the Nine Realms, they never stayed in one place for too long lest their enemies see fit to challenge them, yet it left them homeless and untethered. It was a lonely existence, always running, never settling, with the only other person you could rely on a shadow of their former self.

Like Kára, Brynhildr’s grief grew too much for her. But instead of it driving inwards, she over-focused and became obsessed about keeping Sigrún safe to an extent that was just suffocating. She lived for nothing else. She restricted Sigrún from walking alone, confining her to whatever dwelling they had adopted as their space unless Brynhildr was with her. Training more, eating less, Brynhildr became nothing more than a husk of fighting talent and severe paranoia. Before her eyes, Brynhildr was withering away, and so, she made a choice for the first time since taking on the mantle of a Valkyrie.

She left.

Brynhildr would adapt, she knew, get better with space and time to heal. It was for her health and for Sigrún’s, too. But she was … alone. For someone like Sigrún, who had only been alone before she met her sisters, it gnawed at her soul, tearing parts of her away and rendering her incomplete. For a long time, she walked the Nine Realms this way, aimless and seeking all at once, before finding somewhere where she wasn’t so alone.

Midgard. It was called Earth by its people, of which there were many, a myriad of colours and sizes and cultures so varied it was as if it were many planets squished into one. And the people welcomed her, for the most part, though she was careful to disguise her true potential, for it would only cause heartache. She took their names: Clotilde, Hedy, Maynild, Victoria. She ate their foods and sung their songs, found pleasure in their artistry which, for all Asgard’s talk of superiority, was by far the most beautiful in all the realms. Asgard called to her, whispering seditious promises of home in her ear, but Midgard welcomed her, kept her safe and pieced her back together into a semblance of a person.

It was not perfect, for no realm was. There was darkness and ruin, and men of power standing over those made weak by lies and violence. It could be brutal and the people could be cruel. Some invoked names of people that Sigrún had known to justify their actions, and it made her wonder if those of Asgard were truly right to believe themselves above humans, who wrought such devastation in the names of those who would turn away from it. Death was common and violation just as, and at times she told herself she would abandon it.

But there were those _bright sparks_ that made her stay. Time erased these names as well, stole them from her as a thief in the night, but she could remember their faces and how they made her feel. The laughter they’d caused and the sorrow. A man of emerald eye and barbed tongue playing at being human, whose pale skin and dark hair stood in stark contrast, a brazen smile always playing at his lips making one wary as to its meaning. A woman, quick-witted and sure, never faltering in her stride forwards, always forwards, as she took down those that would see her fall and revel in it. Another man, hulking and broad, a cigar never too far from its lighter.

They, among others, made her feel as if Asgard were nothing but a bad dream, as if she were truly home. Her mortal friends, spanning all of Midgard from iciest mountains to the hottest deserts, who gave her hope for the future. None were her sisters, but then, since the Fall she had had no sisters. Yet these people – some mortal, some decidedly not – had made her a part of their own makeshift families and for that she would always be grateful.

But it was –

_“Darcy, hand me that screwdriver?”_

_“Of course, Your Majesty, I live to serve.”_

_“Well you better serve quicker or I might get me an intern who actually understands what these machines do.”_

_“Harsh, Boss Lady, very harsh.”_

– that made her truly whole. Jane Foster, with her penchant for dangerous science by way of her thirst for knowledge, had become her sister in ways which the Valkyrior never were. She didn’t follow Jane into battle or train with her; their bonds were not formed by fighting and ruin but through discovery and ice cream and nights spent under the expanse of the sky. Their sisterhood was respect and _choice_ , not grief nor loss, kindling from workplace obligation into a true bond of love and sisterhood. And when Asgard reared its head once more, she swore she would protect her new sister as she had been unable to with her old.

Millennia ago, when she was naïve and foolish, when she thought Asgard was her home and the All-Father to be obeyed, when her name was Sigrún the Victorious, she had sisters. And she had lost them, for Asgard, for Odin.

She wasn’t Sigrún the Victorious anymore, and her failure was not one she would ever make again. Asgard be damned, Jane Foster would not die for Odin’s ilk, for his warmongering.

Darcy Lewis would make sure of that.


	2. Fidelis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year all! In celebration of the New Year, this is the (slightly fleshed-out) drabble! Please check the notes underneath this after you read.

“This mark …”

A thoughtful expression pulling at his forehead, his voice trailed off. Licking his lips, he traced a slender finger over the dark lines inked into her forearm. With heavy-lidded eyes, she met his virescent gaze and arched an eyebrow, a shadow of a smirk playing a challenge at the corner of her mouth as she did so. He pursed his lips.

“This mark,” he tried again, leaning forward and nipping at the tattoo. “I have seen it before, but I cannot recall where. What does it mean?”

“Need it mean anything?” she deflected.

Stretching out on the bed with all the grace of a particularly lethargic cat, she bared her teeth in a sharp grin that belied the twinge in her chest. She pulled him close so as to leave an almost-bruising kiss on his mouth. Then, in a practised move, she flipped them and straddled his hips. Gleefully revelling in his surprised but pleased expression, she bent down to press another kiss on his lips, that one less bruising than its predecessor but no less potent with its distraction. Or so she thought, for, after a few pleasurable moments, he gently pushed her away and arose to lean back on his elbows, that questioning light still dancing in his eyes.

“You are trying to distract me!” he exclaimed in mock-accusation.

She smirked, leaning down again to kiss him as she murmured, “It is only trying if it fails to work.”

It worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so I've got a few subscribers to _Traveller_ which is fantastic! I love you all to pieces! The only problem is, I'm not sure whether subscribing means you guys get an alert if the fic becomes part of a series or only if there's more of the fic, so I decided to share the original drabble with you guys - I say original, I mean the base dialogue and actions, it's completely reworded from the original thank god. If you liked this, flick over to the next in the series, _Fidelis_ , which is the first chapter of a multi-chaptered, non-chronological account of the Valkyrior as told by Darcy.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's that. I might expand upon it in the future, which is why I tagged Darcy/Loki because they are impliedly a thing in this and would be an actual thing in a longer fic, in this AU, but there's no plans as of yet to expand - I am on holidays though, so who knows? But that part where she mentioned the "man of emerald eye" who was "playing at being human" is totes Loki in like the 17th century and I have this extra drabble where they're basically in bed and he's like, "This tattoo is familiar to me," which I will post if people want it but idk lemme know.
> 
> I've heavily implied that Kára is Valkyrie from _Thor: Ragnarok_ , but, as I understand it, Valkyrie is named Brunnhilde in the comics, not Kára, even though the movie doesn't actually give her a name apart from Scrapper 142 (which made me :/ hng). I'm not fond of the name Brunnhilde at all, I'm not gonna lie, I much prefer the name Kára and I think it's meaning and background in Norse mythology fits the version of Valkyrie from _Ragnarok_ really well, but I also included Brynhildr in this, so you can really think of either of them as the Valkyrie we know. They have different coping mechanisms in this fic, and while Kára's coping mechanisms are closer to Valkyrie's, even Brynhildr could eventually end up in the same space that Valkyrie does in _Ragnarok_ , seeing as this went down like millennia before. It really is a case of whether you like the "lover who died for me and now I have nothing" angle that is Kára or "I led a band of warrior-sisters and now they're all dead and want nothing to do with me and it's Odin's fault" angle that is Brynhildr.
> 
> What I was going for with this was a kind of historical, mythological mishmash that had a story-telling tone. I'm not sure if I achieved that, but if that's what you got, good, that's what I was going for! I hoped you liked it, and please leave a comment or kudos!


End file.
